The present invention relates to a clamp for use in stringing rackets. More particularly, this invention relates to a racket stringing clamp which may pivot about its longitudinal thereby permitting the clamp to string not only conventional rackets where sets of strings are perpendicular to each other, but also allows it to string newer rackets which incorporate a fan design.
Racket sports have been around for hundreds of years. With the advent of the racket, is people have developed various ways to string the rackets. Regardless of the type of racket (e.g. badminton, squash, tennis, racquetball, etc.), all rackets share a few common characteristics. One characteristic that is shared by all rackets is that the tighter the racket is strung, or the tighter the strings are pulled, to a point, the greater the amount of energy transferred to the object struck by the racket. As such, people have developed various racket stringing apparatus that allow them to place greater amounts of tension on the racket strings. A common component of these apparatus arc a clamp of some sort which allows the user to clamp the string in place and keep tension on it while removing the end of the string from the tensioning device to thread the next portion of the racket.
Until just recently, another characteristic shared by all rackets was the orientation of the strings. Typically, the entire racket is strung using only one, or sometimes two, strings. The string is generally looped back and forth to create a set of parallel columns in a vertical orientation. The string is then weaved back through the columns in a horizontal orientation to create a set of parallel horizonal rows. Consequently, the horizontal columns and the vertical rows meet at right angles and the racket stringing apparatus which were designed to string various rackets were therefore designed to string rackets with the strings at right angles to each other.
Recently, however, rackets have been invented which place the vertical strings in a fan pattern (i.e. the vertical strings are closer to each other at the bottom of the racket then they are at the top of the racket). These rackets have been created based on the concept that if the same amount of effort is placed on a long string and a short string, the long string will stretch further and thereby store more potential energy. The greater potential energy transfers to greater kinetic energy when the potential energy is released into the ball. Because a longer string creates more power than a short string, racket manufactures have worked on ways to increase string length in a standard racket. One way racket manufactures have found to increase string length is to angle the vertical strings towards the center or the base of the racket (i.e. towards the handle). Wile angling the vertical strings in a fan patterns does create longer strings and therefore more energy, the vertical strings are no longer at right angles to the horizontal strings. This had created a problem in the stringing process.
Conventional racket stringing apparatus provide a table above which the racket is mounted in a horizontal orientation. The table has a glide bar which supports a clamp thereon for gripping and maintaining the string in a taught position during the stringing process. As racket strings used to always be perpendicular to each other, the tables were designed so that the glide bar and hence the clamp could only be oriented in two positions which were perpendicular to each other. This has created a problem when attempting to string a new racket incorporating the fan pattern on the standard racket stringing apparatus.
When one tries to string the vertical strings on a racket with the new fan pattern, the string is no longer parallel to a line extending from the base of the handle to the top of the head and the string is therefore no longer parallel to the glide bar or the jaws of the clamp. As such, when one clamps the string with the standard clamp, a kink is placed in the string and the string is no longer straight from one side of the racket to the other. The kink in the string creates and excess amount of string between both sides such that when the clamp is released, tension in the string is lost. The loss of tension in the string translates to a loss of power and therefore counteracts the benefits gained by making the vertical strings longer.
Therefore, there is a need for a clamp which may be used on a standard racket stringing apparatus which will rotate to grasp strings at a variety of angles. The present invention overcomes the drawbacks of the prior art and fills these and other needs.